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Commorragh
"The scions of the Dark City would never admit that the unceasing hunger at their core is what drives them to such heights of cruelty. Instead they maintain that they act only upon their own desires. Some have even managed to convince themselves of this. In truth, unless ourcousins in the Webway feed upon a constant diet of extreme emotion they will slowly wither away, leaving naught but a soulless husk. We of the Craftworlds deny all such urges, and in doing so become less than ourselves. Perhaps it is those that we left to perish who are the lucky ones." --Spiritseer Iyanna Arienal,'' Meditations'' Commorragh, the Dark City, is the massive city-state within the Eldar Webway that is the primary home of the Dark Eldar race. It is said to be impossible for outsiders to find, and anarchy and terrorism are a well-established way of life for its debased inhabitants. It is widely believed to be hidden deep within the inter-dimensional labyrinth known as the Webway, described by the Eldar as a "dark stain" growing within their holy pathways. It is a city known to have "wandering shadows that tear apart the unwary" and is bathed in a crimson half-light. In the final weeks of the 13th Black Crusade of Abaddon the Despoiler in 999.M41, the Eldar collapsed several Webway portals leading to Commorragh, isolating it from much of the rest of the Webway. Given the mutable nature of the Webway, however, the Dark Eldar can still use artificial Webway portals which a re a part of their technological base to create temporary tunnels through the Warp to reach realspace, and thus they are largely unaffected by their Craftworld cousins' actions. History Commorragh's origins date to the apex of the lost Eldar empire, millennia before Mankind even knew of the Eldar's existence. It foes not exist in realspace, but in the Labyrinthine Dimension of the Webway. Yet the Webway is not a true dimension of its own. It has been described instead as a complex network of glowing tunnels through the Warp, a mystic tapestry of hidden threads that breach the veil between the Immaterium and realspace. These analogies are only crude approximations of the reality that the Webway is a physical construct created to span the dimensions that underlie reality. The Webway sits between the material universe and the hyperdimensional, psychically-reactive reality that is the Warp, a nexus comparable to the surface of a mirror or a thin piece of fabric cast over something foul and dangerous. The ancient Eldar discovered that it was possible to harness their advanced technology to exist within that reflective interdimensional surface and to move within the interlocking threads of that veil. The Eldar mastered the original Webway network, though it has changed greatly in the long millennia since the end of the Eldar empire, reshaped by the disaster that claimed so many Eldar souls. Moving between the dimensions is an activity that is always fraught with danger, but such is the skill and technological powess of the surviving Eldar that they still choose to do so without hesitation. Though used by the Eldar, the Webway was originally forged by the ancient and immensely powerful species known as the Old Ones millions of Terran years ago to serve as a conduit that allowed its creators to travel at will to the far-flung worlds across the galaxy they used as colonies, seed planets and research projects without risking exposure to the Warp. Since the Fall of the Eldar, the Webway has become a shattered and extremely dangerous realm, its darkest corners infested by strange entities from the many different realities that comprise the Warp. Yet the Webway's myriad portals still allow the courageous to strike without warning at millions of locations in realspace throughout the Milky Way Galaxy. Commorragh was originally the greatest of the Webway's portal-cities before the Fall and was intended to be able to transport a fleet to any of the homeworlds of the Eldar empire. Because of the access it could grant to even the most far-flung corners of the galaxy in realspace, Commorragh as held by the ancient Eldar to be the most important location within the entire Webway. Because of this intrinsic strategic value, it was not controlled by any of the dominant factions within the Eldar empire. Precisely because of its autonomy from the jurisdiction of the great Eldar councils that governed the empire, the city-port soon became a magnet for all those inhabitants of the Eldar civilisation who wished to hide from prying eyes. The realm of Commorragh expanded as all the wealth and influence of the great Eldar empire and its allies flowed across its furthest reaches. It spread outward into the Webway's void, consuming the other port-cities, private estates and satellite realms of the Labyrinthine Dimension, growing ever larger and even more impressive off the plunder of ten thousand worlds. The Satellite Realms Beyond the runic wards that define the borders of Commorragh lie the tributary realms of the Dark Eldar, ancient vassal states of the Dark City dating back to the Fall. These are the hidden domains in which the Dark Eldar enact their vile rites and Machiavellian schemes. Their origins lie in the tumultuous times that preceded the Fall: as the Eldar empire's hedonistic cults of excess began to thrive, the private realms they maintained within the Webway flourished unseen until the largest of their number grew large enough to pose a threat to Commorragh itself. Over the course of its long history, the Dark City has absorbed all of the vassal domains that it has not destroyed outright, linking one massive sub-realm to another using ancient Webway portals and gates. Within the gilded corridors and flesh-pits of these myriad satellite realms cavort those debauched Eldar who are responsible for the fall of their own species. Despite all the terror and misery that has befallen the Eldar since the Fall, these self-absorbed hedonists still laugh at the warnings of their sober Craftworld counterparts. The Dark City In the deepest depths of the Webway lies Commorragh, the primary home of the Dark Eldar. It is often called the Dark City by those who fear even to speak its name. But Commorragh is no mere city as humans think of the term, since it makes even the largest of Mankind's Hive Cities seem to be no more than a termite mound in comparison to its mountainous bulk. Its dimensions would be considered outright impossible if Commorragh existed within the confines of the physical universe rather than the Webway. Commorragh is more like a vast, interlinked network of satellite Webway realms and cities linked by innumerable portals and hidden interdimensional pathways. In reality, the Dark City is a loose collection of far-flung Dark Eldar habitation nodes spread across the arteries of the Webway like a malignant cancer. Its nodal clusters are in reality scattered at various points across the entire galaxy, thousands of actual light years apart. Yet these locations are linked together by shimmering interdimensional portals. As such, from the perspective within the Webway's confines, the immense distances between each of the different sub-realms of Commorragh can be crossed with but a single step, using the Labyrinthine Dimension's non-Euclidean physics to teleport seemingly instantaneously across the stars. Commorragh appears within the Webway to be a composite urban centre on an impossibly vast scale, a hazy, contradictory realm whose dimensions can overawe the sanity of any who approach it. Thousands of starships dock each day at its spires, for the Dark Eldar are a far more numerous species than the Imperium of Man or even their own Craftworld kin fully suspect. Yet Commorragh plays host to more than just the Dark Eldar race. Many diverse species of alien mercenaries, bounty hunters and renegades all risk their souls to do business in Commorragh, hoping to claim just some of the riches to be had in the Dark City. The reaches of the interdimensional space around Commorragh are filled with the light-trails of spacecraft that pass between the Dark City and the Webway portals that surround it. Some of these gateways into realspace are small and dim, while those above the largest city-states of the realm are massive and can accomodate an entire pirate fleet with ease. A profusion of thorny dock-spurs juts from every spire and starscraper, holding Dark Eldar and other strangel-shaped xenos spacecraft fast in crackling violet beams of electromagnetic force. At present, Commorragh is an almost-infinite nest of achitectural impossibilities and spatial anomalies. Each of its estates has been overdeveloped to the point that their growth has been forced into the vertical plane, the various regions sprouting upwards like needle-plants fighting for sunlight. Each of the Dark City's spires and starscrapers is linked to its fellows by curved arches and gossamer-like buttresses. Its miles-tall aeries and palaces both reach upwards and downwards simultaeously, spiralling into the depths of the Webway's curved space-time. With every Terran year that passes the hideous city seeks to spread out over more of the dimension that serves as its foundation. Life in Commorragh Asdrubael Vect, Archon of the Kabal of the Black Heart and the present overlord of the Dark City, once related to the human torture slave, Gideon, how the Dark Eldar arose and how Commorragh came to exist. Lord Vect made it clear that Commorragh exists within the Webway: "It seemed there was but one way of escaping Her Chaos God [[Slaanesh], known as She Who Thirsts to the Eldar] and that was to flee our homes and leave the physical world behind forever. We came here, into the realm between worlds that we created to traverse the galaxy safe from harm. Here, the Great Enemy's grip is weakened, yet to our Lord's horror it was not wholly broken. He had bought his people time, a little instant of time but nothing more. Others followed him, each choosing a place for themselves, building new shrines and around them great palaces. Here, where you sit now, is one of the chambers of the original Temple of the Black Heart. You are very privileged, you know. Not many survive to get this far. Most of them break before they even reach the second level." A quote from The Annals of Terror, penned by Lasko Pyre, posthumously pronounced a heretic by the Inquisition, (but died by his own hand), describes Commorragh thusly: "What can one say of Commorragh, the Dark City of the Eldar? It is the embodiment of anarchy and terror. It is fear, hatred and desperation incarnate. How long I was enslaved in that timeless city, I cannot say. There is no day or night, just an eternal twilight, an ever-present ruddy glow that bathes all living things in blood light. The air is filled with screams and cruel laughter. When they put out my eyes, my ears alone still conveyed that omnipresent aura of dread and loathing. They took great delight in telling us what tortures and agonies they had prepared, using dread-ridden anticipation as another means to increase our suffering. When the Masters deigned to speak to us, they bought arcane machines to translate their words; they would not sully their tongues with the language of others. Most of my fellow slaves fell beneath the blades and poisons of those tortures beyond compare; the Haemonculi. Sometimes a Succubus of the Wyches would come and take the fittest to battle against brutal creatures and skilled fighters in the death of arenas. Ten men at a time, great warriors amongst humanity, would face a lone gladiator. They stood no chance against the Wyches; who delighted in toying with their foe, slashing and cutting, darting to and fro, leaving a trickle of blood with every pass. No-one dies quickly in the Dark City. They prey upon each other as much as their captives. The great Kabals may hold power, but in the twisting alleys and dusk-shrouding corridors, allegiance is secondary to martial skill. To stray into the wrong territory is tantamount to suicide, running battles are fought every day, blood is spilt constantly. The ghastly Mandrakes are the worst, one wizened old slave told us. They stalk the shadows at will, plucking their victims from their homes, ambushing the unwary and slicing them to death with their claws. We were never truly imprisoned in the slave quarters, but it was clear that if we left, we would be at the mercy of the Dark City - a barrier more effective than any amount of walls, fences and razorwire. They made no attempt to hide their deceitful ways, actually glorifying in treachery and betrayal. Assassination, murder and double-dealing are established ways of life to these decadents. Ownership of myself changed hands so many times that I was unsure who were my masters and who were their enemies. Some times I was stolen, other times I was traded for raw souls, given as a prize in the arena, or simply taken as a right of conquest. Life is worthless in the Dark City, only pain, misery and death have value. Others I saw, humans amongst them, who took to this depraved life with natural empathy. They bowed down to the Eldar and treated them as lords, in return for favours. It is claimed that the most promising are taken as apprentices by the Haemonculi. Most end up as twisted creatures in permanent agony, but others survive and learn, to be let free again into the outside world to spread their corrupt ways. The Hellions are a constant plague to all, they race through the winding streets, blades shimmering as they randomly lop off limbs and heads with wanton glee. They gather for insane races; goaded by each other they attempt death-defying feats of aerial skill. Many die, and when one of the Masters die others quickly gather to feed upon the escaping soul. They fight each other, bite and claw if they have no weapons, to partake of that precious essence. My escape was miraculous; the Emperor must have rewarded my undying faith in those times. However, though I am physically free, my body bears the scars; the many, many scars. Every breath takes me to a new plane of agony, every heartbeat sets my jagged nerves with writhing pain. I cannot see. I cannot speak. Most horrid of all, I cannot forget. Nightmares and waking visions plague me, the drip of my own blood, the cries of anguish haunt me. No-one escapes the Dark City." Sources *''Codex: Dark Eldar'' (3rd Edition) *''Codex: Dark Eldar'' (5th Edition) *''The Torturer's Tale ''(short story) by Gav Thorpe Category:Dark Eldar